November 7th, 2011. Jenna and Monica went to the hospital today, to visit the child they are sponsoring to undergo skin graphs needed due to a severe burn years ago. They walked in the halls, the air smelling like rotting flesh. Jenna, a licensed nurse, offered her assistance to a struggling woman working at the hospital. I have to see three patients, she said, so go ahead, could you please change this girl's dressings. The little girl had fallen on a fire, and was offering from third degree burns all over her body, on her face, legs, arms, and vaginal area. Her mother could not pay for the clean dressings, so the patient's gauze was removed, and then she was washed, her burns scraped at and cleaned, with a bar of soap. Her mother can't pay for pain killers, so instead of being given morphine or put into an induced coma, as in the US, the child stays without anesthesia, cortisone, or proper treatment.
The story made me sick to my stomach, but after living here for a month and a half, I am not surprised. There are hundreds of children here, many of whom are not getting the proper nutrition and medical care, and most of whom do not practice, or cannot afford, basic hygiene. What am I to do? I can't fix them all, I can't help everyone. I get accustomed to the wispy arms and bony fingers, the rotting and missing teeth and the tattered clothes. Everything is dirty here, the ceilings are highways for lizards suctioning and scurrying over the white space, and ants crawl over the plastic tablecloths. I forget the taste of chocolate, the feeling of a shower with power more than a faucet, the silk of a new dress worn one night for pictures and a dance.
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